IR ELAND,

Mr. O'Connell has addreSsed a letter from Dernieute .111lesy to the " People of Ireland," on time present state of affairs. After .:amute introductory remarks on the recommencement of agitatioe by rho Orangemen, and some contemptuous ridicule of their Peinio ./.1a/fe, Lord Wittchilsea, he proceeds to explain his plan of resistance to the enemy, as follows.

" 'file means of such resistance are, in my judgment, twofold-area/ice and

" The negatire means consist in the absence of agrarian disturbances and crimes. I wished to God I possessed any influence over the persons whit per- petrate Whitsboy- crimes. If I did possess that influence, how earnest w.;old I implore of them to desist; how anxiously would 1-anal even as it is, I 4,1 implore of men to abandon Ruch crimes, now and for ever-- intes tvli;ch never produced ;:oy one good or beneficial result to the peopie of Ireland-- so :hies which arc committed almost exclusively upon that very class of poor people whom the titled Orangemen are now, even now, preparing the means of exterminating -crimes which disgust the friends of the people, whilst they give additional strength and power to their worst enennes. In the name of flute suffering country-in the name of the living and all-avenging God-1 conjure

trymen to desist from agrarian crimes of every description. . . . . .

" Perhaps it will be communicated to every Catholic in Ireland, aro! to many Protestaots, that I denounce as an enemy to Ireland, awl as a Inz.ve, irs jar to hui natire land, any man who directly or indirectly commits or joha Is

itersof outrage or crime

" Again, expressing my most fervent wish to suppress all agrarian riis- turbauces, I conic to the more active means of resisting the Orangeish; ; of pro- tecting the people from the murderous designs :of that execrable party, ard of procuring solid and substantial advantages for Ireland. " The first step necessary is combination-lawful, open combination. I at first thought that it would be useful to organize lodges of • Friends of Ireland;' to be called Irish Lodges,' to counteract and oppose the Orange Gadget; but I have abandoned the idea almost as soon as formed, although, 1 confess, I was for one moment fascinated with the idea of having twenty • Irish Ladges• for every • Orange Lodge' which is or should be in existence. But I gave up the plan after a short consideration. First, because any secret or private

society, in its nature, ten 0 ctime, and is liable to every caluninions and false cherge, and yots all the ids udividuals composing it in the power of the worst man Ill the moviety, who may with safety awl success accuse his companions of any politic/LI crime he pleases although of his own invention. And secondly, be cause the Oronue Lodges ' are clearly illegal bodies ; every member of an Orange Ledge is liable to be indiend, convicted, and punished for a misde- meanour. I therefore gave up my idea of ' Irish Lodges' because I would not adTe any of my ceuntrymen to imitate the illegal cunduct of the Orangemen, which, on the centiery, ought, and I rtiet will, be put down by law. " The Irish Lodges ' being the. imeracticalde, the next resource will be found in county cluhs. I wish to st e liberal Club ' established in each county upon the plat: now existing in the counties of Monaghan and Meath,

and about to be established, I hope immediately, in the King's County. The very superior state of public spirit atel enerey ill the counties of Alonaghan and Meath is to be attributed almost exclusively to the organization of the Liberal

Club ' nieach of them. My plan, therefore, is to procure the institution Of a Liberal Club in every county in Ireland. A subscriinion of one shilling a month, and the being propo;ed by one member and seemeled by another, to be, as in the Catholic Associatien, the only requisite to constitrte a member. " I intend actively to exert myself to reduce this plan into practice. When a Jew counties are orgailized, it evill be toy duty to form a Liberal Club for the City of Dublin, to guide and direct all the otheis; and I hope to be in Dublin finite in time to have the arrangement of the Dublin Liberal Club complete before November.

g. Before I proceed to detail the (hake of the Liberal Club in each county, allow me to confess myself, re:mildly and distinctly, to be a 1iiiitcriaiiot. I fill at present a supporter a the existing Ministry. I wish to act myself, and to procure the people of Ireland to act, in the manner least calculated to em- barrass, and most calculated to give strength to the present Ad tration ; sub- ject, however, to the paramount duty of attendieg, above all things and before all things, to the interests of Ireland.

" It is exclusively because I am convinced that the interests of Ireland are iden- tified with those of the present Alinistry that I support them. . . . . . " For a long time, I cherished a faint hope that the Orange faction might be conciliated to Ireland, and I have, for sonic years—indeed since emancipetion- acted on the plan of conciliation ; I have exerted all my euergies arid devoted all the resources of my mind m the endeavour to recoi3cile the Orangemen with Irishinen ; I, acted with as much zeal as if I believed success attainable. I how- ever, xeareely deceived myself by my hopes, and I am now, and for ever, con- vinced that Orangeism must be put down, or that it will keep Ireland down, without hope and without redemption.

" I therefore give the conciliation of Orangemen to the winds ; and whilst I am ready to strew with flowers the path of any man who leaves the Orange ranks and joins the Peoale, to the faction itself I proclaim perpetual and unre- mitting opposition. It. t. Lt opposition the present Ministry' must join. I am, therefore, quite hull .;.■•••Lti ,o conduct our new agitation so as to encumber or embarrass the Adminietnition. My wish is to give them every support con- sistent with the liberty and legislative independence of Ireland.

" The success of my plan—embracing, as it dins, a Liberal Club for each county, and a Graud Liberal Club' fur all Ireland, to be assembled in Dublin— will depend von the utility of the measnres to be promoted by these clubs— Ivor/ the perfect legality of their proceedinge—nnon the cooperin km they can afford to the King's Government against the disloyal machination, of the mur- derous Orange Lodges—and von their holding out peaceable and legal redress to the poorer classes of the Irish for the inflictions of Orange oppreseion and atrocity ; and, above all, upon their sympathizing with the wants ,ind wishes of the high people, and, in return, enjoying the peifect confidence of that brave and faithful people.

" T. attain these ends, the following definite otijects should form the con.ti- tution of the Liberal Clubs :' Mist, to prevent, if possible— and to punish where they exist—all ' agrarian crimes."Illis should be consideied as the pri- mary and vital principle of the Liberal (lobs.' Without the suppression of agrarian crimes we can neither resist the threatened Orange coe.himition to yer- petuate oppression, nor obtain for the people of beland those measures of legis• lative relief which the present Ministry are, I believe, disposed t grant. In short, no evils can be avoided, nor any good procured for ltelaud, until agrarian crimes and miscreancy' are totally extinguished. " The second object of the Liberal Clulis will be to put the law rigidly and actively in force against the members of the Orange Lodges, and to punish by due course of law all the crimes and misdemeanours of the Oraneeinen. Every insulting proceeding on their part, provocative of a breach at the peace, is in itself a misdemeanour, arid should be indicted and punished as such. Of course, every riotous assembly of Orangemen should be equally proceeded against, and punished in a similar niaaner. So should their riots, and, above all, their mur- ders. In p llll ishing these crimes, 'the Liberals,' for that is our denomination, will give all the assistance they can to the Government and to the constituted authorities, and we shall be entitled to the assistance, in return, of the consti- tuted authorities.

" The third object a the Liberal Clubs' will be one of vital importance—. to procure peaceably, legally, and constitutionally, the total extinction of tithes. It is our own fault of we do not succeed. We will have none to blame but our- selves if tithes are ever again demanded or paid in Ireland. The tithes are, at present, in fact, if not in law, payable only once a year—that is, at November ; and shortly after that month the Parliament will meet again and if the voice of the people of Ireland be loud enough in demanding the abolition of tithes, the Legislature will extinguish them for ever. The House of Ci`emmons, we all know, at a blow knocked off two-tiftlis of the tithes ; and this reduction would OM Le law, but for the folly of the Upper House, and the wickeduen; of Irish parsons and their advisers. The tithes are, therefore, staggering, and it requires nothing but a peaceable and legal determination on the part of the people, to seek constitutionally for their extinction, in order to have them abolished for ever.

"To this point the attention of the Liberal Club' in each county must be directed. They must procure a meeting in every parish to state its local grievances, and to petition against the continuance of the blood-stained impost of tithes. It will be right to begin the meetings to petition as soon as possible in order that petitions with from one to two millions of signatures may be ready before the first day of the next session of Parliament. "The law of tithes has undergone a considerable alteration by means of Mr. Stanley's Act, which is in operation at present; so far as to prevent the Clergy from levying tithes with the flippancy they formerly did; and it takes away the power to distrain in nine cases out of ten. This point is of the utmost value. It will protect almost all the poor occupiers of lands from being distrained, or, indeed, sued in any way. It will, to use a familiar Irish phrase, bother the most truculent of the parsons pretty considerably.

"On this point, too, I will address another letter to the Liberals,' so soon as my books arrive. I will state to them how far the claws of the Orange parsons are tied up. The Liberal Clubs will then be able to afford legal protection to the occupiers of the land against all species of illegal harpies. But, in the mean time, it ehould-bedistiactly understood, that it is a crime to form any species of combination or confederacy to resist the payment of tithes legally demandable' - yet that it has been said that any individual may separately, and by himself, utterly refuse to pay tithes, and thus form what has been called 'a passive resist-

ance 'to such payment. Let the 'Liberal Clubs,' however, watch continually to prevent any violation of tile law whatsoever.

" In seekieg hitherto for the abolition of tithes, we have spared the existing interests of the present race if incumbents. I doubt much the justice of making

such a concession, and I am convinced of its impolicy. We cannot conciliate

these men, and yet we leave them at liberty to continue the contest, without any risk to their individual interests! I believe the time is come to insist upon

the immediate eashiering of every sinecure ecclesiastical benefice, arid, at the utmost, to put upon a species of half-pay every sinecure parson. Indeed I do believe that it is a bad reason to give eny man money, theist he has hitherto re- ceived a great deal, without giving any kind of value for it. " The fifth, mid greatest object of each 'Liberal Club' should be to preeure ' the Repeal of the Union.' 'f his is an object which should never be lost sight of. It is not possible to do full and effectual justice to Ireland in any other titan a Domestic Legislature. None but an Irish Parliament will ever consent to ex- tinguish that greatest of all existing evils, absenteeism.

"We must, however, agitate Repeal' with as much caution and prudence as determination and perseverance. Above all things, and before all things, we must take care that it is not made a sectarian or religious question. The Orange Lodges are endeavouring as much as they can to convert it into a Catholic question. They are giving it a religious hue, and denouncing it as such. This, then, is a critical moment. It is one in which Repeal' may lie flung hack ten—nay, twenty years. We are, it is true, agitating to oppose the Orange faction—let us keep the Repeal question quite separate from that opposition. Let us get rid, if we can, of the tithe question' first ; or, if that be tedious, let us at al: create use every exertion to convince the people that ' the Repeal ' is intended ;1 ,! lined for the benefit of all, and that it is immaterial for the purposes 4.f what the religion of any individual may be. We are looking for the rest. niea of the liberties of all classes and creeds in Ireland, without any distinetioa whatsoever. This duty is an awful one—it consists in the perpetual severanee of religious prejudices or interests from the agitation of the Repeal.' If we succeed in this separation, our ultimate success will not be remote ; but if, by our present iediscretion, we enable the Orangemen to convert the Repeal ' into another Catholic question, no other event can have the power of inflictieg such a blight upon the hopes of Repeal. Let us, then, whilst we act firtnlv, art ale) cautiously, and steer such a course as will prevent the great cause of legislative independence from on the one baud embarrassing a 3.1inistry disposed at present to be just towards Ireland, or from on the other enabling the deadly foes of Ire- land—the Orangeists—to tarnish and grievously injure that cause by degrading it into a sectarint squabble. " Let us, than, in agitating the Repeal, keep these dangers in view ; and whilst we neither abandon nor relax our efforts to attain Repeal, let us put thie! efforts under the guidance and control of the most prudent and dieereet , recollecting that, after all, a Domestic Legislature is the only one under u I. Ireland can prosper."

The letter concludes with a summary of its foregoing contents and the promise of another letter to Lord -Duncannon, in which the 'faults of Earl Grey's Government of Ireland are to be pointed out for hi. Lordship's instruction.

The plan laid down by Mr. O'Connell is worthy of his segaeity he will have the Law and the Government on the side of his kigit:!tion. I low adroitly, too, he lots given the Repeal question the " go-by *' her the present ; affecting to consider it the most important though the least inessing ! There it lies at the bottom of his budget of agitation, :eddy to be brought up or let alone, as the exigencies of the time or the °eta- sions of O'Connell may require.]